Tentacled
by Ender falls on Squidlox
Summary: Sky goes with Vision Squad to rescue Ty from the squids, a routine that he's grown familiar with. But this time is different. Soon after Ty is rescued everyone starts to realize that he's not human anymore, and it's getting worse. Now, it's a race against time to find a cure, because if Ty's transformation is allowed to complete... than it just might be permanent.
1. Chapter 1

**What is it with me and stories like this? Anyways, this idea sort of gripped me and wouldn't let go. It's really a side project, so updates aren't likely to appear on a consistent basis.**

A team isn't a team until they've had to save Deadlox from the squids together. Sky looked over his friends as they raced towards the ocean, water breathing potions in hand and swords strapped to their sides. They had no armor, to keep them from being weighed down when returning to the surface. "Okay, everybody know the plan?" A chorus of "Yes!" responded to Sky, with one "No!" coming a second later. Not slowing pace, everybody turned to glare at Jerome, who smiled sheepishly. Sky sighed, rolling his eyes. "One more time then. Ty's being kept not too far from shore, so we dive in, fight off the squids guarding him, and go back to the surface. I've done this a million times, shouldn't take more than half an hour."

With that, they reached the ocean. Quickly guzzling down the potion, they all leaped into the surf. Sky jumped the farthest, and he plunged right into water deep enough to swim in. He smirked to himself at the thought of his teammates landing to close to shore and having to awkwardly wade deeper before they could swim. Husky was ahead of the group quickly, Sky following behind with powerful strokes pulling him deeper into the water.

Before long, they reached a small underwater structure. It was practically abandoned, save for a few bored-looking squid guards who were easily chased away. The squids captured Ty a lot, but they never seemed to put much effort into making sure they kept him. This was a lot lighter security than Sky expected though, and it made him uneasy. It was almost as if they wanted Vision Squad to get Ty back…

Nah. What reason would the squids have to do that? It made no sense. A minute later, he came across an air filled cell with Ty locked inside. He was filing his nails, looking up briefly when Sky approached. "You know, you could have broken free without me." Sky said, gesturing to the nail file Ty was holding.

"That trick only works in the movies. Besides, the door is unlocked; I just needed a water breathing potion, and I knew you would bring one." Ty said with a casual smirk, acting like he was relaxing at home rather than in an underwater cell. Snorting, Sky tossed a spare potion to Ty, who guzzled it down and pushed open the door.

After getting everybody back together, which took longer than the whole rescuing Ty portion of the mission, they all swam back up to the surface. Sky's head popped out of the surf just as his potion ran out, and he waded to the shore. He was soaked, his dripping wet clothes clinging to him. Everybody else was dealing with the same problem, except for Barney, who was the only one with no clothes or hair to get wet. Ross tried to fluff out his fur to dry it. "Sometimes I miss being a narwhal." he muttered as he squeezed water out of his tail.

"Ty, have you been looking away this whole time?" Jason asked. Ty turned his head to the astronaut. His visible eye was looking up and to the right, not moving from its position when Ty turned towards Jason.

"What are you talking about? I'm looking right at you." Ty frowned, tilting his head slightly.

"Very funny Ty."

"No, I'm serious." Overhearing, Sky pushed his way past Jason.

"Here, how many fingers am I holding up?" Sky asked, carefully watching Ty's eyes.

"Two, if you don't count the thumb." Ty was right, and his eyes hadn't flickered towards Sky's hand for a fraction of a second. There was no way Ty could have guessed that. But how could he be looking? It was impossible. Unless…

"Ty? Could I move your hair to the side for a second?"

"Um, sure." Sky pushed aside the curtain of hair on Ty's face, revealing his left eye. Almost as soon as he did, Sky let go of the hair, allowing it to swing back into place as he yelped and quickly backpedaled. Ty raised an eyebrow. "Okay, I'll just look at my eyes myself." Ty walked over to the water, pulling his hair out of his face and looking down at his reflection. He froze, before spinning around to face the rest of Vision Squad.

His hair was still pulled back, and his eyes were wide, revealing that they were now facing two different directions. Everybody stepped back a little bit, staring at Ty with a mixture of horror and curiosity. "How… how did this happen?" Sky asked, flinching a little when Ty turned to look at him with those derpy eyes.

"I don't know," Ty said, pulling his hair back onto his face in an subconscious attempt to hide. "The squids injected something into me before you came to rescue me, but nothing happened until now, so I thought that it didn't work."

Sky took a few deep breaths to calm himself before approaching Ty and gently putting a hand on his shoulder. "Well, there's no need to panic yet. Maybe this all temporary. It probably doesn't mean anything significant."

Ross flicked his tail, stepping forwards to comfort Ty. "Yeah, look at me! I've got derpy eyes too, and I'm doing fine! You've got nothing to worry about." Sky really doubted that Ross was completely right. Ross's eyes faced opposite directions, and Ty's eyes pointed up and to the right, and up and to the left, a form of derpiness Sky had only ever seen on one species in Minecraft. Despite this, everybody was nodding their heads in agreement. Maybe Sky should stop worrying about it.

"Well, c'mon, we've got to be headed back to base." Sky said. He started walking, and the rest of Vision Squad trailed behind, chattering and trying not to mention Ty's eyes. Sky looked ahead into the sun, which was hanging low in his namesake, about to set. Ty would be fine, right? Yeah. His eyes should go back to normal in a few days, no longer than a week, and before long everybody would forget about it.

Oh, how wrong he was.


	2. Chapter 2

**This one came out pretty fast! Also, I've noticed that Tentacled might not be the best title, so if anybody has any ideas for a better one, please suggest it!**

"Good morning, Ty." Sky said, sipping his coffee. "Mornin'." Ty grumbled back, yawning. He didn't look towards Sky as he said it, not wanting to see the small, unintentional flinch that Sky gave every time he saw Ty's eyes. He didn't blame Sky for it. Sky had been dealing with the squids for longer than Ty had known him, so it was inevitable that Ty's new eyes would bring up bad memories.

Ty opened the pantry, checking the neatly stacked chests for something to eat. He didn't really feel like rummaging through the food for long, so he went with the first food he saw, which happened to be a hunk of bread. He sat down at the table, taking a bite of bread. Almost immediately, he spat it out again. What was wrong with it? It tasted like a bitter piece of cardboard, and it made him feel nauseous. Sky turned his head to Ty with a look of concern. "Are you okay?"

Ty nodded. "Yeah, but I think this bread has gone bad or something." Sky walked over and took the bread from his friend's hands, biting into it. He chewed for a few moments then swallowed, shrugging dismissively.

"Tastes fine to me." Ty got up again, resigned to getting something else to eat. Strangely, his eyes gravitated towards the refrigerator. As a group, everyone had decided that the refrigerator was going to be used to keep Jerome's supply of raw fish from rotting. Ty had never liked fish cooked, let alone raw, so he had never even touched the fridge before now. He walked over to it, Sky's eyes following him warily. "You're not actually going to try raw fish, are you?"

"It actually sounds pretty good right about now." Ty responded, opening the fridge and taking out a fish. He closed the door, looking at the fish with slight hesitation. It was completely intact, looking like it had just been pulled from the water. Not bothering to cut it up, Ty bit a chunk out of the fish. It tasted amazing, and he kept tearing away at it until there was nothing left but bones. Hunger not yet fully satisfied, Ty reached to open the fridge and get out another fish or two. He stopped when he noticed Sky staring at him, mouth slightly ajar in shock. "What? You look like you've seen a ghost." Ty said.

Sky shook his head a little, as if trying to clear it. "Nothing. It's just… look, I'm going to go now. See you soon." Sky set down his coffee and walked out of the room.

"Goodbye." Ty said, feeling slightly unsettled. He ran his tongue over his teeth. Was it just him, or did they seem a little bit sharper today? His stomach growled, and he reached for another fish.

Sky walked along a path just outside of the house where the Vision Squad lived together. The day was sunny, and birdsong filled the air, but Sky's thoughts weren't on his surroundings. It was easy to brush off Ty's mutation yesterday, but now he was getting concerned. Eyes like a squid and a sudden taste for seafood? It didn't seem very much like a coincidence. This could be a problem. He'd have to talk with the whole of Vision Squad later, but was there anything he could do now? Suddenly, an idea popped into his head. He broke into a run, breaking off the path. He knew exactly where to go to find answers.

He slowed to a stop outside his old house. He unlocked the door, pushing it open. He wished he could have time to appreciate the place, but he had to figure things out soon. He went straight towards his lab, the doors opening as he approached.

He gathered scattered papers from all over the place, taking a moment to regret not organizing his lab better. He sat down at his desk and began flipping through them, scanning for any trace of information that could help him. He finally found something that looked useful, one of the first papers he had found. He frowned. Strange. He didn't remember writing any of this. Then again, he had a bad habit of picking up every document that seemed interesting or exciting, and then letting them sink into the piles of stuff he had lying everywhere. This paper could easily be one of those. Well, it didn't matter how he got the paper. What was important was whether or not it could help Ty.

 _The Veraform Stone is a star-shaped rock, about the size of a human hand, that was once regarded as a powerful magical object. It was believed that this stone could reverse the affects of unwanted transformations_ _to the user, although it was considered highly unlikely to work once the transformation was complete._

 _When enchantments and potions became known as the most practical and versatile forms of magic, all other magic fell out of use. The knowledge of how to transform one being into another was lost, surviving only in minor genetic experiments prone to failure, and belief in the Veraform Stone died with it._

 _Research currently suggests that the stories of this stone may be true, although not enough interest has been generated to conduct experiments. The stone is said to be found at the tip of the Northern Fang._

Sky pulled out a map of the surrounding area. The map was largely dominated by a massive bay, almost a sea. The two peninsulas jutting out at the mouth of the bay were the Northern and Southern Fangs. The Vision Squad house was close to the shore of the bay, directly across from the ocean. The journey shouldn't take more than a week.

Sky rolled up the map and pocketed it, grabbing the paper as well. He'd be able to get to the rest of Vision Squad sometime this evening, and then he could explain his plan. Despite the closeness of his destination, he felt like he needed start moving as soon as possible. So far, Ty's transformation was barely noticeable, almost enough to make Sky doubt that it was actually happening, but he had no idea if his luck would stay. For all he knew, Ty would wake up the next morning fully transformed.

Sky climbed up the stairs and walked out of his house. Again, he frowned at the paper, wondering how he hadn't seen it before. He never saw the small blue shape quietly slipping away.


	3. Chapter 3

**Sorry about the short chapter; the next one will be longer!**

Sky knew that the evidence that Ty was turning into a squid was weak. He walked up to the door of the Vision Squad house, uncertain as to what to do. Was it really worth sending everybody into a panic over something that might not even be true? Before Sky could open the door, it flew open, revealing Jerome, who looked more than a little stressed. "Where have you been?" Jerome demanded, dragging Sky inside. "We need you to help figure out what's going on!"

"Wait, what happened?" Sky asked.

"Ty got sick, and now he's barfing up ink. We figured you would know more about this than any of us." Jerome said in a matter of fact tone. "He's lying on the couch." Sky tore himself out of Jerome's grip, racing towards the living room. As Jerome said, Ty was lying on the couch, looking nauseous, with a bucket on the floor next to him. As Sky snuck closer, he saw that the bucket was indeed partially filled with ink. Ty looked up at Sky.

"How are you doing?" Sky asked. A smile curled onto Ty's face.

"I just threw up half a gallon of ink. Never been better." Ty said sarcastically, a slight rasp to his voice.

"How'd you get so sick?" Sky wondered out loud.

"I ate all of Jerome's fish." Ty said, deadpan. "Can't wait until he finds out. Then again, he might take pity on me. Ugh, it feels like all my organs are rearranging themselves." _That's probably pretty close to what's actually happening._ Sky thought ruefully, only realizing he had spoken out loud when Ty's head jerked up. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Have you finished throwing up for now?"

"I think so, but why are you asking?"

"Don't want you to stain the carpet. I'm getting all of Vision Squad into the same room. I think this is something I need to explain to everyone."

A few minutes later, Sky stood in front of Vision Squad. He cleared his throat. Best to get start to the point. "Ty is turning into a squid," Sky said bluntly. "It started when he was kidnapped, as far as I can tell, and it's only going to get worse as time goes on. I've done some research, and I think I've found something that can help. There's a stone at the tip of the Northern Fang that's said to have the ability to reverse transformations. The stone starts to lose effectiveness once the transformation is complete, so we have to be fast."

"Hold on a minute," Ty said. "The only thing that could possibly stop me from becoming a squid for the rest of my life is a freaking _rock_?"

"It's rely on that, or give up all hope," Sky said helplessly. "The Veraform Stone is the only thing I could find." This started everybody talking, questions and fears flying across the room like arrows. By the time everybody calmed down, they had all come to an agreement. The Veraform Stone was their only hope. They would leave in the morning. Sky was up late that night, working to get everything prepared for the trip. Nobody had asked him to, but he couldn't sleep, and he wanted to minimize the delay while everyone got ready in the morning. The work kept him busy, but as he stumbled into bed, his worries swarmed his mind again. There were so, so many ways things could go wrong. How could he guarantee things would go right? He couldn't. Thoughts like this haunted him as he sunk into a restless sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

**Remember how I said that this chapter would be longer than the last? I lied. Definitely next chapter though, because I'm going to combine the next two chapters. Minor spoiler alert: This means you're going to get a mostly transformed Squidlox, and let me tell you, it's going to take quite a few words to explain what THAT mess looks like.**

"Rise and shines, dirt."

"Five more minutes." Ty groaned, rolling away from Barney and folding his pillow so that it covered his ears.

"Oh yeah, that's gonna get you the cure faster." Barney scoffed. Ty thought about this for a moment.

"All right, I'm getting up." he said, pulling himself out of the bed with some effort. Barney walked out of the room, and Ty prepared for the day. When he was ready, he walked outside, where everybody was standing around with their supplies. Ty realized that they were waiting for him. He ran to join them. As they set off, Ty cast a reluctant look back at the Vision Squad house, knowing that he might not be human by the time he saw it again.

The day passed uneventfully, and it seemed like forever until the sun started to hover low in the sky and a camp was set up. Ty volunteered to be the first on watch. It was partially because he could make zombies keep their distance, and he was quick to detect other mobs. The other reason was because so far, all the stages in his transformation seemed to happen while he was sleeping. Maybe if he could stay awake, he could postpone it? No. It was a childish, stupid idea, and even if it worked, he couldn't stay awake forever. He was sitting on a flat rock a few feet away from the camp. The camp was set up next to the shoreline, so that it would be easy to keep track of where they were. If Ty looked towards the tents, he could also see the sea, moonlight shimmering on water as gentle waves lapped at the sand with soft slapping sounds. It was oddly comforting to him, but he had to keep his eyes on the forest.

Ty frowned, yawning. Something was off about the air around here. It was hard to breathe, and he was starting to feel lightheaded. Should he alert someone about this. "Guys!" Ty yelled, starting to stand up. "I think-" That was all he could manage to get out before he collapsed, the air becoming harder and harder to breathe in. He could see Sky coming out of his tent to see what was wrong, blinking sleepily before seeing Ty collapsed and running over. The sides of Ty's neck were itching, and it soon became a burn, with a sharp spike of pain just as Sky reached him. Sky fell to his knees, his fingers ghosting over the slits on Ty's neck, which were pulsing with each frantic, useless breath. Sky gasped, making some connection that Ty would have made if the lack of oxygen wasn't getting to him, making it harder to think. Suddenly, Ty was being picked up, and he could feel cool water washing over him just before the world spun into black.


	5. Chapter 5

**HERE WE GO, THIS IS A GOOD CHAPTER LENGTH. Also, before this chapter gets started, I'd like to thank everybody who's taken the time to review, or even just to come back every chapter. Your support really means a lot to me.**

Ty woke up to Sky's face inches from his own. "Ahhh!" he screamed as he flew back in surprise, vaguely noting that there was something off about his voice. The sun had risen, and Ty realized he was partially submerged in the sea, and Sky was lying down in front of him. Sky got up, brushing sand off his clothes.

"Sorry. I had to make sure you were still breathing. You really scared me last night. Are you feeling okay?" Ty rubbed the side of his neck gently, feeling his new gills.

"Yeah, I think-" Ty clasped a hand over his mouth, startled at the sound of his voice. "What was that?" he said shakily. His voice was almost unrecognizable as his own. It was oddly pitched and grated on his ears. He sounded just like a squid. "Hang on, maybe I can fix this a little." Ty said. He started experimenting with his voice, ignoring Sky's barely held back laughter as he worked to control his voice. As it turned out, he could make himself sound normal for the most part, but whenever his concentration lapsed, he would slip back into his squid voice. "It's kinda like puberty all over again." Ty joked. He was a lot more shaken by the change in his voice than he let on. He felt as if a piece of him had been removed and sloppily replaced.

"Well, looks like everybody else is starting to get up." Sky said. Sure enough, the rest of Vision Squad was starting to get out of their tents and pack up for another day of traveling. Sky frowned. "But if you can't breathe air anymore, how are you going to come with us?"

"Can't I just swim along the shoreline as you walk?"

Sky shook his head. "I wish you could. You see, I'm kinda worried that the transformation might start to…" Sky broke off uncomfortably, gesturing towards his head. Ty got what Sky meant. If the transformation started to affect his brain, it was too risky to leave him in the sea. "Do you have any ideas?"

"How about a giant fishtank?" Ty meant it jokingly, but Sky's eyes brightened at the idea.

"That could work! Hang on for a moment!" Sky ran off, and Ty could see him starting to give orders to the half-asleep team. Before long, a tank was built and dragged towards the shoreline. It was made of glass and filled with water right from the sea. The wheels were made of wood, and there was a rope attached so that everybody could take turns pulling it. It was quickly slapped together, but it would hold together for the trip to the Northern Fang, after which it (hopefully) wouldn't be needed anymore.

Ty got up out of the water. He jumped and clung to the edge of the tank, dangling there for a moment until Jason ducked down to grab his feet and push him up forcefully, sending him tumbling into the tank. Ty was absolutely soaked. Normally, he hated being wet, but he hardly noticed unless he came out into the air, and he had to admit that the cool water felt good on his gills. As the tank started to move, Ty fell asleep, exhausted by his long watch shift last night.

(A week later)

"We've made it." Ross was the one to say that, looking up tiredly as he saw the sea on one side and the ocean on the other. Sky saw the Veraform stone first, sparkling on the sand, just a few feet away from the water on each side. There should have been some celebration, or at least some sense of accomplishment, but everybody was too tired to be excited. More nights than not, everybody was walking throughout the night, racing time as best they could.

All eyes turned towards Sky. "It was your idea to come here," Jason said. "You should be the one to bring him over to the stone. Sky turned hesitantly towards where Ty was huddled in his tank. Ty's vision had been changed on the third day of travel. It made his night vision near perfect, but the brightness of sunlight started to hurt him, so for the most part he lay huddled at the bottom of the tank, shielding his eyes. Barney had suggested that they make something to block the sunlight from the tank, but it was decided that that would take more time than they had.

Ty uncurled from his position to look at Sky, and as he did every time he saw Ty in this state, he had to bite back a scream. Ty was covered in slimy blue-gray patches of skin that contrasted sharply with his more human skin. His hair was starting to fall out in clumps, and his clothes only loosely fit him as he had shrunk. His teeth had started to change, sharp, large, and pointed teeth sticking out among human teeth. His left arm was a tentacle, but Ty still had bones in that arm, unlike his right arm, which was now practically useless. Ty's shoes had been thrown out when his feet disappeared, his legs now tapering to a flexible point, with the faint outlines of suckers along the back. More tentacles had started to grow out of his sides, getting larger with each passing day. Sky noticed that Ty took care not to move those tentacles when anybody approached him. Sky knew that he could, because he had seen Ty moving them when he thought nobody was watching, expression full of morbid fascination. If Sky had to guess, he would say that Ty was trying to avoid freaking out his friends. _It's way too late for that._ Sky thought sadly. Whenever he looked at Ty, an ancient instinct reared up in him, warning Sky that what he was looking at was _wrong,_ something that _shouldn't exist,_ and that if Sky didn't stay away, it would happen to him. Of course, Sky knew that Ty wasn't contagious, and that right now Ty needed Sky by his side more than ever before, but the urge to run was hard to fight.

"You ready to be completely human again?" Sky tried to put as much happiness into his voice as he could, trying not to show how utterly exhausted he was. Ty nodded enthusiastically- he hadn't spoken a word since he completely lost his ability to speak in his human voice- and Sky picked up the rope. He pulled the tank towards the stone, his muscles shaking slightly. Ty was swimming quickly in circles around his tank in excitement, and then leaped out, flying over Sky's head and landing right in front of the stone. He scrambled to grab it, and everybody turned to watch as the stone started glowing, rising into the air. It shone brighter, and brighter, and…

…And stopped glowing. It stopped floating too, plopping heavily down into the sand. Everyone stared at the Veraform stone in shock, trying to absorb what had just happened. Did it really not work? Ty's form started to shift, and Sky leaned forward hopefully. He then realized which way the transformation was going. Ty shrunk out of his clothes, and after a brief struggle to free himself from his fabric prison, crawled out to reveal he had fully turned into a squid. No one spoke as Ty dragged himself across the sand to where he had dropped the Veraform stone. He picked it up in two of his tentacles, curling another around his headphones at the same time. For what seemed like an eternity, nobody moved or spoke.

"This can't be happening." Ty said. Whether it was the squid-like sound of his voice cementing everything, or just how broken he sounded, he broke everybody out of the trance. All of Vision Squad rushed forwards, talking on top of each other, struggling to express in words what they were all feeling. Only Sky held back, and that was because there was one question on repeat in his mind. _Why didn't the Veraform Stone work?_ He got his answer quickly.

Squids burst out of the water. Taken completely by surprise, Vision Squad fell back, easily pinned down by the squids. As Sky tried to fight off his unexpected attackers, he saw Ty being dragged into the ocean, kicking and screaming the whole way, still clutching his headphones. That momentary distraction was all that it took for Sky to be overwhelmed. Sky narrowed his eyes as he saw King Squid emerging from the water. "What did you do to the Veraform Stone!?" Sky snarled, only held back from charging King Squid by the squids holding him down.

"Nothing." King Squid replied simply. Sky blinked, taken aback.

"What?"

"The stone didn't work because it never worked. It was nothing but a story. It took only one little trip to your lab to nudge your mind towards the idea that it could possibly work."

Sky was silent for a moment as he realized that there had never been any real possibility of getting Ty back to normal, that he had been led on a wild goose chase. He chose his words carefully before he spoke. "Why do all this? Why not just brag about what you've done from the very beginning."

"I needed Deadlox at the end of his transformation, and I couldn't be bothered to keep him with me for the time it took for him to transform."

"You're taking him for no reason. You couldn't take his mind, and he'll never join you."

"Did you really think that was why I wanted him?"

"Then why?"

"Well, if you want to replicate the results of an experiment, you need the results of said experiment, don't you?"

"You're planning to do this again!?"

"Of course! A lot more, if I plan to entirely replace humans with squids. I need a few more test subjects to learn how to streamline the process… which is where the rest of your friends come in. Revenge and a step towards world domination all in one! Isn't that great?"

"You'll never get away with this!"

"Look around you. One of your friends has already been turned into a squid. The rest are soon to follow. You're unarmed, and miles away from any of your recruits. So, I hate to be cliché, but…" King Squid leaned in close to Sky, grinning madly the whole time. "…I already have."


	6. Chapter 6

**Happy day-after-Halloween, have an extra-spoopy chapter. We're nearing the end of the story, but I'm having some serious writer's block, so please send me any ideas you have!**

Most of what happened after Ty was dragged into the water was a blur. He tried to summon zombies, his first, instinctive reaction to any threat. For the first time ever since he discovered his powers, he failed. He had panicked, flailing uselessly at his attackers. The feeling of trying to fight with a new body he was entirely unused to only made him panic more. The fact that had barely moved for the last week didn't help matters. Eventually, he had been knocked out, not because he posed an actual threat to his captors, but because his constant screaming was getting irritating.

Now, Ty was huddled in a cage, trying to calm himself down. It wasn't easy, since the moment that the Veraform Stone stopped glowing was playing on repeat in his mind. He had no idea why the Veraform Stone hadn't worked, but he knew very clearly what it meant. His only chance at becoming human again had failed, and now he might be a squid forever.

Part of what frightened him about that, aside from the obvious thing about squids and humans being mortal enemies, was how helpless he was in this form. He could barely move without his tentacles getting tangled up. He wouldn't be able to find food if he got out, which meant that he would have to depend on somebody being willing to help him, and he didn't think he could count on that.

Most of the things he could do as a human were now useless too. He couldn't hold a butter sword properly with his tentacles. Butter actually hurt any squid that touched it, so Ty supposed it didn't really matter if he could hold a sword anyways. He couldn't do parkour underwater. He couldn't even summon zombies anymore.

He could hear squids coming towards his cage, ready to drag him away and experiment on him. Ty felt a familiar sensation well up in him as he closed his eyes, a feeling of tugging at the earth, a feeling of needing to defend himself somehow. Suddenly, screams ripped through the water.

Ty opened his eyes, seeing that he had summoned a handful of zombie squids. They were tearing into the squids sent to get him, snapping angrily and blocking off the exit. Ty stared as he processed what he had done. Since when had he been able to summon zombie squids? All of the other zombies that he had pulled from their graves were made from human remains. Maybe his powers hadn't been removed, just… altered.

When the squids sent to get Ty looked like they weren't going to bother anybody anymore, Ty tried to change his demand from a simple cry for help. Ty stiffened slightly as the squid zombies turned around and swam to him, leaving the bodies of the squid guards floating lifelessly in the water. As the zombies tore at the bars, Ty had to remind himself that he was completely in control, that he could make the zombies turn back anytime he wanted. It still creeped him out though.

When the zombies broke through the cage, and Ty made them stand back a safe distance, he realized he couldn't really move. He could either take the time to relearn how to swim, or have the zombies carry him. He really, really didn't like that second option, so after a few false starts, he got himself swimming. Even the zombies were better swimmers, but he should be fine for the time it would take to free his friends (if they hadn't been killed) and escape. Then, he would have the rest of his life to practice.

As Ty started to leave, he saw one of the fallen squids moving. He turned around to look, and saw one of the squids getting up. He prepared for a fight, but then he realized that the squid wasn't moving to attack. And those wounds were too much to survive… Cautiously, Ty tried to mentally command the squid to move forward a little bit. They did. Ty realized that he might have just caused a potential zombie squid apocalypse. Well, not his problem. He checked over the other fallen squid. They had less wounds close to what passed for a brain, but sooner or later, they would reanimate.

Ty gathered his small army behind him, preparing to break out of the dungeons. It was way too late to save his humanity. He looked over his zombies one more time. Was it possible that he could actually start a zombie apocalypse for the squids? If he was smart about it, then he probably could. He shivered. What was he _thinking_? Ty couldn't live with himself if he did that. He tried to justify it to himself. If he spread the infection, it would be easier for him to save his friends. He could keep it contained. That could work. Despite this, Ty knew that he wouldn't leave a spot in the ocean untouched.

Because right now, all he wanted was revenge.


End file.
